Jamaica’s government plans to hire 150 scientists to help farmers boost output, more than tripling its agronomy staff by 2010.

Agriculture Minister Christopher Tufton says most of Jamaica’s 200,000 farmers lack formal training and technical support, on average cultivating 5-acre (2-hectare) plots.

More than half have signed up to work with the 40 agronomists the state now employs.

The ministry on Sunday said the new scientists will be hired over the next two years, boosting the ratio of agronomist to farmer from 1 to 5,000 now, to 1 to 1,053.

A tropical storm damaged four-fifths of Jamaica’s banana and plantain farms in August, devastating production of two of the island’s most important crops.